Birch Cottage has a new website of its own
Visit the Birch Cottage website to bookWelcome to Lackan Cottage Farm
We’re Steve and Claire Golemboski-Byrne, we live here off grid with our daughter, our dog, cats and horses. We make all our own energy using wind and solar, grow as much of our own food as we can (it varies widely) and have used permaculture design principles to help us create a great place to live.
Here on the website you’ll find stories about the projects we’ve undertaken – what works, what doesn’t. You can come stay in our guest cottage – Birch Cottage and we will show you round, or maybe you just want to find out how to do some of this stuff. Either way, welcome.
The world turned upside down
The weather (and it seems, the world) has gone mad. Why the world? Well on the radio this morning I listened to a government minister saying that the only way for households to maintain 'an acceptable standard of living' was for two adults to be in full time jobs. So...
Demolition time again
Usually we take great pride in our ability to dig, shift, lift and cart large amounts of stuff using only human power, and it's very satisfying. However, the mess that was our old extension contained lumps of concrete so large that it was time to resort to mechanical...
Coming out of hibernation
Following the midwinter break, we've emerged from a brief hibernation to begin the process of preparing the ground for growing our veg, fruit, trees and flowers. Although the hens are helping enthusiastically by scratching over and fertilising various bits of grass,...
Happy New Year
Well - what a year. So much has happened, and is all here in our blog, but looking back you wonder how it all fitted in. A year ago we were all set to move to Wales, hadn't even seen Lackan Cottage Farm, and of course there were only two of us. 2012 began by finishing...
Yet more compost toilet stuff
Composting toilets can be expensive things if you choose to buy the fancy all-in-one devices. Most aren't much more than a seperator seat to keep the pee and solids apart, with some sort of fan to dry the solids a bit, and keep any smells to a minimum. Usually pee is...
Join us for the Northern Ireland premiere of ‘Living in the Future’
Would you like to live in a "hobbit" like house, avoid high energy bills and live in a more sustainable community? The “Living in the Future” eco documentary will be launched on 22 January 2013 throughout the UK and shows what life is like being a low impact...